Finally, a Duke Snider Giants card

My latest custom card is the second of what appears will be a trilogy of Duke Snider custom cards.

In the style of 1964 Topps, it pictures Snider with the San Francisco Giants, the team with whom he actually played in 1964. That was Snider last year as a player.

If Topps had scheduled Snider for one of the later series of 1964 baseball cards, he might have appeared as a Giant. But since he was slotted in at #155, in the set's second series, Topps had to run with a photo of Snider with the Mets.

After 16 seasons with the Brooklyn and L.A. Dodgers, Snider had been sold to the Mets just prior to the '63 season. He played 129 games for New York in 1963, the most in any season since 1957.

After just one year with the Mets, he was sold to the S.F. Giants on April 14, 1964. They released him after the season.

Snider rejoined the Dodgers' organization for 1965, as manager of their AAA Pacific Coast League team at Spokane.

I thought about making my Snider-Giants card in the 1965 format, to provide a career wrap-up with all of his MLB stats, but after kicking it around, decided to go with a 1964 style. In that era, Topps was never keen on issuing cards of players in the season after they retired,so that provided a good excuse to go with the 1964 version.

I also saved a lot of time using the 1964 format, since all I had to do is scan the back of a "real" 1964 Topps Snider and change the team name, logo and copyright information.